


Blood on the Floor

by IchiBri



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Mild Gore, injured Shiro, mobster Shiro, tailor Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 20:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14028468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IchiBri/pseuds/IchiBri
Summary: When a job goes sour and leaves Shiro with a stab wound, he doesn't have the time to find the family's quack doctor.  What he does find, though, is a tailor shop owned by a brazen young man with an attitude as sharp as his needles.





	Blood on the Floor

_Threaded Roses._

The sign on the door read closed, but the shine of a work lamp in the back cast streams of yellow glow through the darkness of the shop.  Shiro leaned heavily on the display window, hand clutching his abdomen where an oozing liquid soaked through his shirt and into the outer layer of his open jacket.  The shadow of a mannequin loomed over him.  Without eyes or lips, its expressionless face still judged him.

His eyes narrowed at the mannequin in its perfectly tailored suit.  Not a care in the world, what did it know of Shiro’s problems?  Nothing, Shiro thought with a firm line of his lips.  He pushed off the glass and squared his shoulders despite the burn of pain that seared his side.  Lifting his hand, he quickly rapped at the door a few times before the fingers returned to clutch at his wound.

He waited, but each low groan that rumbled in his chest divulged his dwindling patience.  With the last remnants of restraint, he pounded his fist against the door hard enough to hear its bell chime on the other side.

His teeth clenched, grinding against each other as he sagged against the display window.  The chill of the glass eased the heat of his skin, but Shiro held on to the burning fervor of adrenaline in his veins.

The click of the lock turning pricked Shiro’s ears.  He straightened, a hiss on his tongue with the pull of flesh, before he forced a smile to his hips.

“We’re closed,” a voice said through a small crack of the door.  “Come back tomorrow.”

Shiro lunged forward, his hand splayed on the door panel.  His weight rested heavily against the wood, and he gritted his teeth at the pull of flesh to his abdomen.  Sweat on his brow, his steely eyes narrowed to make out the shadows covering the other’s face.  “I’ll be dead tomorrow.”

The white of an eye was all Shiro could make out in the night, but he saw how the dark spot of the iris flicked lower over his body.  It widened at the splotch of blood staining the shirt.  “This isn’t a hospital.”

Shiro’s temple ached as a low growl crawled up his throat.  With a heave of his weight, he pushed the door open, and the other man didn’t fight it.  The smaller man stepped back and let the door swing wide open.

Shiro’s balance tipped.  With a curse on his tongue, he stumbled across the threshold, falling forward until his shoulder collided with the floor.

“Try not to get too much blood on the hardwood.  It’s expensive.”

Shiro tipped his head toward the owner of the voice.  The man’s shiny black Oxfords tapped against the floor with every step away from Shiro.  A white button up—its sleeves meticulously folded up to the elbow—was tucked into pressed black slacks that clung to his thighs.  Red suspenders crossed over the expanse of his back for no other purpose than to be aesthetically pleasing.

The man stopped before the dark wood of a reception desk that matched the elegant, sophisticated ambiance of the shop.  He leaned over it, the fabric of his shirt stretching over the muscles of his back, to reach for the business phone.  He grabbed the whole thing and set it atop the desk’s raised ledge.  Slowly turning to face Shiro, the man picked up the phone and placed it to his ear.  Slender, deft fingers hovered over the numbered keys.

“Who are you calling?”  Shiro scrambled to push himself up, but with one arm and an open abdominal wound, he crumpled back to the floor with a poorly concealed snarl of frustration.

The man tipped his head to balance the phone against his shoulder.  He twirled the cord with his newly freed hand while pushing down a number pad.  “Who do you think?”

“Hang up, or we’re both dead,” Shiro gritted out, eyes sharp like a dagger’s edge as he peered up at the man.

The man’s twirling finger paused for a moment.  “Pretty sure you’re dead either way.”

Slowly, Shiro wedged his arm beneath himself and pushed against the wood.  Eyes squeezed shut, he bit back a guttural groan as he rose to rest on his knees.  “Hang up, or you die with me.”

“Is that a threat?” the man hummed, lazily pushing another number on the pad.

Shiro inhaled a deep, steadying breath.  “No,” he flatly said.  “It’s a warning.  My employer is keen on sinking liabilities in the bay, and you became a liability when you opened the door.”

A tense silence of stern stares and firm lines of lips passed between them before the light tap of the phone returning to its cradle broke it.

Calculated, the man walked closer to Shiro.  Each step resounded in the space around them until he stopped only a stride away.  His shadow fell over Shiro like an eclipse of the sun.  “Might I remind you, you were the one who knocked,” he said, dark gaze icy.

Shiro raised his head to meet those vexed eyes.  His fingers dug into the tender skin around his wound, pressing and holding as he stood.  Voice pinched and measured, he said, “Would you have preferred I broke the window?”

The man didn’t recoil at Shiro’s height or bulk.  He squared his shoulders and faced Shiro toe to toe.  “I’d have preferred you quietly dying in an alley.”

A faux breath hissed through Shiro’s teeth.  “That stings, but not nearly as much as being fucking stabbed.  So if you don’t mind, Mr. Tailor, could you thread a needle already?”

“One—” the man waved a finger in Shiro’s face, and Shiro had to lean back to avoid a nail scratching the scarred tissue across his nose “—it’s Keith.  And two, I sew suits, not human flesh.”

Shiro brushed past Keith, his weight staggering with every step.  The work table in the back with heavy Victorian legs looked sturdy enough to support his weight, so he made a beeline for it.  “Listen, Keith,” he said, voice thick with each breath, “if you don’t want a dead body to dispose of, you’re gonna learn to sew human flesh real quick.”

When Shiro reached the table, he leaned heavily against it.  A sewing machine, a neatly laid suit jacket, and an arrangement of tapes and notes sat on its surface.  Shiro reached to shove the jacket aside; but at the stretch of his abdomen, he doubled over with the aching burn that seared his side.

The quick tap of Oxfords alerted Shiro to Keith’s approach, but the hands Shiro expected to fall upon him reached for the suit jacket instead.  Keith tenderly folded it over his arm, smoothing a hand over the fabric as he walked it across the room to a smaller display table of ties.

Shiro cleared his throat.  Slowly straightening, he gingerly turned until the backs of his thighs pressed against the table’s edge.  “Great priorities you got there.”  He grunted as he lifted himself onto the table.  “I’m bleeding out in your shop, but god forbid a suit is sullied.”

“If you wanted hospitality, you should’ve gone to the hospital.”  Keith laid the suit upon the ties, quite maddened knowing he’d have to later straighten the display and press wrinkles out of the suit.  As he turned back to Shiro, he brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes only for it to fall into place over his vision once more.  “Try not to die while I prepare a few things.”

Shiro watched Keith walk away, head tipping to follow each languid step.  Despite it all, the corner of his lips curved up as he leaned back on his knuckles.  For having a dangerous criminal shove their way into his shop, Keith was handling himself far more calmly than Shiro expected, and Keith’s brash words and impertinent manners piqued Shiro’s interest in him.  Should the man not kill him with a pair of sewing scissors, Shiro might just have to revisit _Threaded Roses—_ during business hours, of course, because Shiro wasn’t an uncivilized brute unless paid to be.

When Keith returned with a sharp metal pair of scissors in his hand, Shiro’s smirk fell.  But when Shiro noticed the towels and basin of water in his other, Shiro arched a curious brow.  “For someone who doesn’t sew up people, you sure seem to know what you’re doing,” he said.

Keith rounded behind the desk.  He placed the scissors on the seat of the chair before spreading towels across the desk’s surface and setting down the basin.  “Well, unless you want to die a slow, painful death due to infection, you better hope I know what I’m doing.  Now lie back…”  His nose scrunched, and his eyebrows drew together as he stared at Shiro.

“You know you can ask for my name,” Shiro said, voice rough as he slowly lowered himself back upon the desk.  By the time his head rested on the fluff of a towel, Shiro’s breathing was raspy and ragged.  His chest rose with each slow, deep inhale–his last-ditch attempt at retaining control.

“I’ll pass.”  Keith spread the flaps of Shiro’s jacket open until they hung over the edges of the desk.  With steady fingers, he reached for the tear in the soiled t-shirt and ripped it further.  He adjusted the angle of the work lamp before prodding fingers inspected the wound.

Shiro raised his head and craned his neck to see.  “Well, doc, how’s it look?”

“Superficial.”  Keith didn’t look up, but the word wasn’t said with ill intent.  It was the most soft-spoken the man had been through their whole encounter—focused, collected.

Keith reached for a rag and dipped it in the warm water.  After wringing the excess, he moved to press it against Shiro’s abdomen, but he paused just above the skin.  Dark eyes flicked to Shiro’s face.  “You might want to start rambling.”

The light of the lamp shone off Keith’s irises.  Shiro figured that must’ve been why their depths appeared softer—no longer a raging storm of wind and sleet.  But he knew the pity he saw in them was for the pain that would soon be inflicted.

“Yeah,” Shiro tipped his head back and stared up at the dark shadows of the ceiling, “you want to hear the adventures of a button man?”

“Will it make me a liability?”  Keith pressed the cloth to Shiro’s skin, gentle yet firm in each careful rub to clean away blood and grime.

Shiro rasped out, “You already are.”

“Then you might as well make it worth my while.”

With a quiet puff of amusement, Shiro smirked.  Yeah, this man was definitely intriguing.  He picked the right area for a job to go sour if only to be forced to seek out this tailor shop and not the quack doctor across the bridge.

“For starters, it’s Shiro by the way.  My name,” he began.  Punctuated by hissed breaths and bit back groans, Shiro rambled on about the enterprise of finger breaking and skull stomping and the painstaking cleanups that came with such bloody persuasions.

Keith tossed the sullied rags into the basin.  “Oh, so you can clean up any blood you left on my floors?”

Shiro steadied his breathing with a few deep inhales before countering, “You’d make an invalid man such as myself scrub your floors?  How heartless.”

“It’s not my blood staining them, now is it?”  With a smug smirk, Keith raised a thin eyebrow as if to dare Shiro to rebuke it.

“But I’m dying,” Shiro drawled, letting his head tip dramatically to the side.  The slick sheen of sweat sticking to his skin added to the image of a pale, sickly fellow with the grim reaper’s shadow looming over him.

Keith pulled open the top center desk drawer and picked out a thin needle and spool of thread.  He didn’t miss a beat as he said, “You’re exaggerating.  It’s nothing but a superficial flesh wound, so yeah, you’ll be scrubbing my floors.”

Shiro grumbled and groaned, the sound reminiscent of a brooding teenager, and Keith chuckled at the childish pout to the man’s lips.  Such a simple expression, yet it made Keith question Shiro’s age.  At first glance, he assumed Shiro was some haggard man at least fifteen years his senior, but with the touch of a boyish grin—even marred with the suppressed grimace of pain—Shiro looked far more youthful.  Keith would be lying if he said it didn’t look good on him.

Pulling the thread knot tight, Keith said, “Try not to bite off your tongue.  I’d rather not have to piece that back together, too.”

The lighthearted warning had mirth bubbling in Shiro’s chest, but that warmth quickly overboiled with the searing heat of pinched flesh and the first of multiple needle punctures.  Shiro’s teeth clenched, grinding and biting at nothing as the fingers at his side clawed at the towel beneath him.

Keith worked quickly.  He held skin together and pierced through with the needle with all the dexterity one would expect from a professional tailor.  Even with the quivering of Shiro’s abdomen, Keith focused on closing the wound and ignored every choked groan that resounded in the quiet space of the shop.

With the thread snug, Keith cut it and tied it off.  “You still with me?” he quietly asked, watching each rise and fall of Shiro’s chest.  Gaze flicking higher, he saw how the creases at the corners of Shiro’s eyes gradually softened and his lower lip uncurled from between the bite of his teeth.

“Barely,” Shiro muttered.  Blinking his eyes open, he slowly pushed himself to sit upright.  His head tipped low to inspect Keith’s handiwork as he gingerly prodded at puckered flesh.  “Not too—” he began, gaze lifting to look at Keith, but the press of a thumb to his bottom lip halted any words he might’ve said.

Keith swiped away a bead of blood, the crimson coloring Shiro’s lip where the bite of teeth split it open.  A palm pressed flat against Shiro’s thigh as Keith leaned close ever so slowly.  “I thought I told you I didn’t want to piece any more of you together.”

The last few words were warm breath upon Shiro’s lips before Keith pressed close to kiss him–firm, hard, unyielding, exactly what he’d expect from such a brazen man.

When Keith pulled back, retracting all points of contact in favor of disposing of the spent needle, Shiro licked his lips.  “I think I need a second round of treatment.”

Keith hummed at that, but he continued tidying up his workspace.  “Once will suffice until my floors are clean,” he said.

“And what happens if my wound reopens all over your precious floors?”

Back to Shiro, Keith paused.  Slowly, he turned to the man still sitting upon the desk, each tap of his shoes echoing in the room.  “Do you doubt my stitches?” he asked, a dangerous lull to his voice.

Shiro’s smirk fell as he swallowed.  Keith might as well have been pressing a knife to Shiro’s jugular with how sharply his eyes stared while waiting for an answer.

With a shake of his head, an amused puff of air blew from Shiro’s nostrils.  He slid off the desk and stepped into Keith’s space.  “Not at all.”  And with Keith’s eyes crinkling with a self-satisfied smirk, Shiro knew he’d enjoy knocking upon his door for many nights to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading <3 <3
> 
> You can find me @ichibri on tumblr & twitter


End file.
